It’s time to start getting ready for Fall term at many colleges and universities. Class schedules are out, and now you’re experiencing the sticker shock of buying textbooks, perhaps for the first time.

Not to worry. Finding the best deals on new and used textbooks takes a bit of research, but it’s time well spent finding big savings.

How To Find the Best Textbook Deal Online

When beginning your search for discounts on textbooks you’ll want to have your syllabus in hand, or better yet, access to it online.

Most universities have their student’s syllabus uploaded as early as two months in advance of the start of classes. This is done in part so you can order your textbooks ahead of your arrival on campus, and also in hopes that you’ll purchase your textbooks from their campus bookstore.

Campus bookstores obviously carry the books you need for classes, but are not always the best place to find a textbook deal. Online textbook shopping can be a great way to get all your shopping done in a flash, shipped for free to your door and for much less than you imagined.

For example, Oregon State University’s OSU Beaver Store has a way for you to look up your classes, and find which textbooks are needed for those classes.

OSU’s Beaver Store: Textbook Look-Up

They’ve also added a comparison shopper view which theoretically should show you the best comparable prices online, but based upon my informal testing of a few books, may be skewed a tad in OSU’s favor.

OSU Beaver Store: Pricing Options

If you want to save money shopping for textbooks online, I suggest opening up several windows within your browser to compare prices from several sources. Two sources the Savvy Sleuth has consistently found great deals on textbooks are Amazon and Texbooks.com, both of which also have textbook buy back programs.

Amazon.com

Amazon offers an outstanding textbook option for deal shoppers. With the option to buy or rent e-textbooks for your Kindle at up to 60% Off, and used textbooks at up to 90% Off, Amazon could end up saving you a ton of cash!

Get an Amazon VISA which earns points that can be used to purchase textbooks off Amazon. I have one and use it for everything on and off Amazon, and when points accumulate I can either get a gift card, check or use the points immediately towards an Amazon purchase. Very handy, with 3 points earned for every dollar on Amazon purchases and 1 point for all other purchases.

Another cool Amazon perk is Amazon Student, which is FREE to students with valid school (edu) email addresses. You get FREE Amazon Prime, which means access to free Kindle best sellers, magazines, Amazon Instant Video service and free 2-Day shipping for 6 months! I’d advise getting in on the Amazon Student deal whether you buy textbooks at Amazon or not, as it’s FREE and the Amazon video streaming to your PC is too once you’re a member.

Definitely worth checking to see if your textbooks are available at Amazon and comparing prices. If you’re looking at used books, be sure to read Amazon Marketplace seller’s descriptions of the books carefully, and their shipping policy to make sure you get your textbooks in the condition and time frame that works for you.

Textbooks.com

Another fantastic resource for textbooks is Textbooks.com for new and used textbooks, as well as textbook rentals and e-reader options.

Textbooks.com also has a buy back program and a 30-day hassle free return policy, which works in your favor if for some reason you decide to drop out of a class or the instructor switches things around on you at the last minute and changes textbooks.

You can also download textbooks for your e-reader, which is sometimes a less expensive (depending upon the textbook), more portable option. Certainly makes your backpack lighter!

If you are a returning customer you also get a 10% returning customer bonus, dropping your textbook costs yet again!

Save up to 90% Off at Textbooks.com and see price comparisons and conditions of used books for sale from other sites when you look up your books.

Textbooks.com: Textbook Pricing Options

Informal Testing & Recommendations

When I randomly chose three textbooks from the OSU’s syllabus in the class categories of Math, Science and English, and searched for those books at the OSU Beaver Store, Amazon and Textbooks, I found the best pricing for 2 of the 3 used books were at Textbooks.

Amazon came in second for the used textbooks I searched for in print, but first for e-reader textbooks.

When doing your own search for textbook deals online, I recommend opening up your favorite browser and windows from each site you wish to check. Then compare each book directly. Yes, there are comparison shopper tools that will do this for you, but it’s been my experience that they are not always accurate.

Choose at least 3 books from your syllabus and check the pricing on all of them at each store, noting conditions of books, as they affect the pricing.

You should see a pattern that will make your choice of where to purchase your textbook deals much easier.

Also take into consideration shipping costs.

Some marketplace sellers will charge for shipping, which are additional costs that may negate any savings you received on the book’s price.